


Manhandling

by magnification



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Flirting, M/M, Sparring, armin thirsty for the d, reiner thirsty for the a, teenagers being FOOLS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 03:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1842067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnification/pseuds/magnification
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armin's not the only one who can scheme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Manhandling

**Author's Note:**

> i asked folks on tumblr last night to give me a sentence and id write a fic from there and this came out of it

Not that you’d expect it - and not that he’d consider it - but Armin was definitely a risk-taker. He examined his risks before he took them, tested waters, conducted the subtlest of experiments on mind and environment, and often chose the most dangerous route if it meant, in the end, earning the greatest reward.

That day, when Shadis told everyone to pick their partners for sparring practice, he weighed physical pain and the ache of rejection against the agony of uncertainty before strolling up to Reiner and asking him to spar with him.

"If you say so," Reiner replied.

Though he joked about being strong enough to accidentally send any of the other trainees flying across the field with a bare flick, Reiner had a way of withholding his strength. Once, early on, Armin had seen him pair up with Christa, and as he watched on, he could tell Reiner was letting her land babyish punches and dainty little spin-kicks. It was obvious enough that Shadis interrupted them to tell Reiner to give it his all, for Christas’s sake; if she ended up having to fight anyone out there “in the real world,” they certainly wouldn’t be trying to spare her. But regardless, Reiner pretended to get pinned underneath her not ten minutes later, like some father predator with its cub, and congratulated her on her increasing strength. It wasn’t Reiner’s strength that worried Armin: it was what he would say when Armin finally asked him how he felt about him.

Armin could have sworn that, ever since the first day of training, he and Reiner had been flirting. Armin himself didn’t know what he was doing in the beginning, smiling so much around him, giving him playful bats on the arms whenever he giggled at his jokes, complimenting him on whatever was appropriate at the moment, bantering back and forth with him. It was all instinct. He never thought about what he should do in the actual spending-time-and-having-a-conversation-with-the-tall-hunky-blond-guy-whose-body-he-ogled-in-the-locker-room-and-whose-voice-he-imagined-snarling-his-name-whenever-he-went-to-bed moments. He just did it.

Connie of all people was the one who clued Armin in. They were seated next to each other one day when they had to practice de- and reconstructing their 3D gear. Armin and Reiner’s eyes met across the room, and they exchanged a smile, and then Reiner, after glancing to his side at Annie, scrunched his face into a scowl the same as hers and took to cranking a screw into place with the tip of his finger the way Annie did. Armin chuckled, and then, on top of it and out of nowhere, Connie was chuckling, too.

"You and Reiner," he said.

"What do you mean, me and Reiner," Armin murmured back, a second later unsure of why he was murmuring.

Though he was focused on his gear, Connie smirked. “Every time I look at you two you’re flirting like nothing else.”  
News to Armin. But it surprised him how easily he accepted it. Calling it flirting made sense, and Armin was glad to learn the word for what he’d been doing all along. One point for Connie, he supposed. He still wouldn’t get his hopes up that Reiner was doing the same, though; he knew Reiner thought Christa was cute (then again, so did literally everybody else), and he’d seen him smack Bertholdt on the ass and give him huge slobbery kisses on the cheek (probably just to embarrass him, given the context). He pursed his lips, trying to gulp back any eager maybes.

"You know he wants you just as bad as you want him," Connie said. "Just tell him, dude. ‘Come let me have it.’"

Armin bobbed his head, confused. “Have what?”

Connie just looked back at him, his eyebrows raised, his smirk wider and more one-sided than ever.

And Armin knew. As soon as everyone went to the showers that night, he caught his gaze trailing down the length of Reiner’s body, from his thick, solid pectorals to his columns of defined abs, and then lower and lower. Of course Connie had been right. On the one hand, Armin wanted to thank him for introducing him to the vocabulary for the thoughts Armin had had about Reiner for months, but on the other, putting his desire into words humiliated him. He went to bed two hours later thinking, I want Reiner to fuck me, instead of just thinking in foggy, delirious fantasies about Reiner fucking him.

Not that he’d spent the last several weeks just wanting Reiner to fuck him. The flirting—if that was what it was—continued as usual, and Armin more and more acknowledged that, yes, okay, he liked Reiner—really liked him—really liked him and also lusted after him—and what was the point of just sitting around liking someone when you could say out loud that you did and maybe get to be with them? At least, if he found out how Reiner felt, Armin would be rid of the uncertainty.

He came to consider not knowing a waste of time. They’d spent months flirting. They’d graduate in only a few more. After that, the probability of their deaths would rise up like a punted rock, and Armin, sure he would die the moment the gates of Wall Rose opened for his first mission in the Survey Corps, decided he wanted to spend at least a little time with Reiner.

Actually with him.

All the way up until the sparring started, Armin had it in his mind that he’d let things come as they would, but as soon as he realized flirting was happening, he’d say that it was—“You big flirt,” or something like that—and come straight out and ask if Reiner wanted to go out with him. But then the sparring did start, and as soon as Reiner grabbed Armin’s wrist, he remembered: he’d never sparred with him before.

Armin had always ended up sparring with Eren, or Mikasa, or Connie or Christa, Marco or Mina here or there. Never Reiner though; back when Shadis chose partners, he tended to match opponents in some regard, be it speed or size or reach, and then when he started letting the trainees choose their own partners, he’d always been snatched up by one of his best friends almost immediately. The way Reiner fought—the way Reiner fought with Armin—knocked every thought out of his head.

He was on the ground in an instant, Reiner a shadow descending upon him. For show, Armin lifted a hand to try to fend him off, but Reiner ignored it, pinning one of Armin’s feet underneath his knee, his other leg weighing down on Armin’s other thigh. Reiner bore down on him. One of his hands went to Armin’s shoulder, while the other clapped palm to palm until Armin felt nothing but grass beneath it.

Reiner didn’t hold back, and Armin liked it.

"Thought you would’ve had better reflexes!" Reiner grinned.

There was nothing nasty about the tone of his voice, but Armin almost wanted to ascribe something to it. There had to be some nastiness there, he thought, if Reiner would dare positioning them like this, legs entangled, crotch to crotch. Armin bit his lip. “I’m just surprised you aren’t treating me like Christa,” he replied. Weakly and to look as if he wanted Reiner off of him, he began to fumble underneath him.

It took nothing for Reiner to keep him in place. “What, did you want me to?” But after releasing a huge gulp of air, Armin rocked as hard as he could to the side, and sent Reiner’s arms wobbling. He toppled onto Armin, his face buried in the crook of his neck, his shocked gasp a hot puff against his skin.

Armin just shook his head, and he was glad he did.

Reiner grappled with Armin’s barely resisting body until he’d wrestled him from his back onto his stomach. Some arm-against-arm swatting meant a loss for Armin that was actually a win: Reiner had him handcuffed in his grip, Armin’s soft backside pressing up against Reiner’s hips. It occurred to Armin how strange it was that sometimes a plan had to fail at the outset in order for a better one to appear.

"Don’t treat me like Christa," Armin said, his voice straining. Reiner’s weight was forcing the air out of his lungs like deflating a balloon. "You aren’t real with her. Treat me like you treat me."

Behind him, Reiner bent his leg forward in order to force Armin’s to do the same. In this position, he managed to secure the lock on Armin’s hands between his stomach and one hand, while the other hand crept around to Armin’s front, from his stomach to his chest to his neck. The entwined mound of the two of them pushed forward until Armin felt the grass tickling the top of his skull and was sure Reiner had nowhere else to position his face but tucked between Armin’s shoulder and neck.

Then lips, burning and damp, pressed against Armin’s neck, caught a bit of flesh between teeth, and sucked hard, once, releasing it with a wet smack.

"What?" Reiner asked. "You think I’d treat you any way else?"

Armin shuddered, went boneless in a high gasp. He’d have counted losing in a sigh of rapture as a tremendous failure if he couldn’t cede that Reiner’s strategy had simply been better.

Reiner let him stay down for a moment, but as he sat up, he trailed his fingertips down the length of Armin’s arm, and helped him to his feet. Armin wobbled. Pink in the face and dizzy with delight, Armin was surprised to find that his mind actually was pretty clear. When his gaze met Reiner’s face he found him smiling wide, earnest as ever, as if he’d planted the most chaste kiss imaginable on Armin’s cheek instead of wrestling him into—pretty literal—submission.

"So," Armin snickered beneath his breath. "Now that that’s out of the way."

"Now that that’s out of the way," Reiner parroted. He hadn’t let go of Armin’s hand.

Now that that was out of the way, there was actually a lot Armin could have said; he almost couldn’t decide. Guess I know how you feel about me. When can we do that for real. How long have you been planning that. You’re even better than I already knew. Then Reiner looked down, and Armin followed his vision, until both of them fixed on where their locked hands met. Reiner gave Armin a squeeze, so Armin squeezed back.

He’d come too far not to risk being as blunt as possible. He decided on, “Reiner, do you want to go out with me sometime?”

"Yeah I do," he answered, as if yes was the most foregone conclusion possible, pathologically obvious. “So long as we tell Connie all about it first.”

Just as he’d done when Connie himself had first made the flirting suggestion, Armin bobbed his head, surprised.

"He made me promise," Reiner said.


End file.
